Leader to Leader Reflections
November 5, 2008
The Leader of the Future Celebration (2008)
Remarks by Geneva Johnson, Secretary, Board of Governors
The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute
I am pleased to present the thought for the evening at this, our 3rd annual Leader of the Future Award Celebration. I want to give thanks and honor to our Chair, Frances Hesselbein:
...For her abiding faith in each of us and an abiding faith in the vision and mission of Leader to Leader.
...For her taking on as many challenges as she has, and enabling us to see through a glass darkly.
...For her relentless transformational leadership style.
...For her endless energy to go anywhere, any time to "answer the call."
...For her extended and extensive time of service that she has given to the founding of the Drucker Foundation, to Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute and countless organizations throughout the nation and the world.
...For her wearing many hats and wearing them well.
...For the impact she has made on countless lives and being the perfect model of servant leadership and my second area:
I would like to share my brief thoughts on our new President and CEO of Leader to Leader: Susan Bari. Sue, on behalf of the Board of Governors of Leader to Leader, we are so pleased that you have joined Leader to Leader and we are so excited about the leadership you will bring. We see you as a visionary leader with a history of being innovative, a history of growing the resources of an organization, a history of growing the number of members in an organization, a history of broadening the impact of the mission of an organization, her history of organizational skills to greatly increase the involvement and participation of diverse individuals in the organization's mission, her keen ability to build relationships across many boarders, Sue we are so pleased with you as our new leader because of your respect for our past and our present but also because you are a leader with an orientation toward the future and to paraphrase a verse from the New Testament ? "It doth not yet appear what we shall be."
And now my thoughts on the mission of Leader to Leader which is to strengthen the leadership of the social sector by providing social sector leaders with the essential leadership, wisdom, inspiration, and resources to lead for innovation and to build vibrant social sector organizations.
Throughout the years, we have promoted Peter Drucker's definition of innovation and established an annual innovation award to a social sector organization. At one point we peaked over 700 applications. We are pleased that thanks to Dean Ira Jackson the Drucker Graduate School at Claremont continues with an annual award on innovation for a social sector organization.
We will learn later that one of the keystone markers of our honoree, A.G. Lafley's leadership is innovation. Peter Drucker wrote "successful innovative leaders aim high, create value. They are not content simply to improve on what already exists, or to modify it. They try new and different values and new and different satisfactions to convert a "material" into a "resource" or to combine existing resources in a new and more productive configuration."
A bit of information from the past ... I couldn't resist a statement in Peter Drucker's book on innovation and entrepreneurship written in 1985: "The world's largest producer of packaged consumer goods, Procter and Gamble has had a near perfect record of successful innovations." He further wrote, "Companies hat have build entrepreneurship management into their structure like Procter and Gamble continue to be innovative and entrepreneurial leaders decade after decade irrespective of changes or economic conditions." And now please join me for our thanks:
Eternal God, we thank you for each of our Board members who have been the stewards of our mission, who have had the courage to take risks and make difficult decisions, we thank you for our staff and the commitment, we are grateful and appreciative of the special commitment of Fred Altstadt, his leadership as our Chair Elect, and we thank Mutual of America for the continued commitment and its many and varied contributions, and finally in the words of the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk Eternal God, "Help us write the vision on the tables, to make it plain that all that see may run that read it."
May it be said of each of us that we did our very best. We are grateful, we are blessed to share this evening with you and each other.
Amen.
Enjoy your meal and fellowship with each other.
